Blog posts on quality managementPosts selected fromManagement Blog - Engineering Blog - Investing Blog and other blogs - Government Lean Six Sigma
Once the political decision has been made to eradicate polio then that desire can be carried out – and politics really has little impact. Other examples are not as simple. A political decision to eliminate AIDS runs into political controversies in selecting the best strategies to accomplish the goal.
A desire to eliminate hunger, poverty or homelessness run into differing opinions on how those problems should be addressed. I can’t imagine any politician against the elimination of those problems. However, many politicians will be against various tactics to accomplish those goals.
Political decisions have management components but arguing about the poor management effectiveness of political decisions is a bit too advanced for our current capability, I believe. It seems silly for a government to subsidize mansions being built in hazardous areas where insurers would not insure construction, but for political reasons it continues. It seems silly to have the political leadership prohibit the government from negotiating lower drug costs from suppliers, but they do. continue reading: Government Lean Six Sigma - Management Improvement Flavors
Some tools are much more common in one program, even if they are not limited to one program (such as Design of Experiments used heavily in six sigma). But design of experiments existed long before six sigma and was used by sensible people to improve for decades before six sigma.
The biggest difference I see in the programs is the overall aim. And that overall aim affects everything else. I happen to be a fan of Deming’s ideas. Most of these programs take a great deal from Deming’s ideas. I believe Lean is closest to Deming’s ideas (which makes sense as Lean is essentially the Toyota Production System TPS). continue reading: Management Improvement Flavors - Steve Jobs on Quality, Business and Joseph Juran
- Quality, SPC and Your Career
Success is not as easy as we might hope. Just discovering the ideas of Deming or Toyota or Ackoff is not enough. The great ideas don’t, by themselves, convince managers to try a new way of managing. There is a great deal of education needed for most organizations to get to the point where they realize they could improve by applying “old” ideas such as: control charts, lean thinking, spc, not tampering… continue reading: Quality, SPC and Your Career - Public Sector Management Using Deming's Ideas
Madison’s quality improvement efforts began after then-Mayor James F. Sensenbrenner and his staff were exposed to the teaching of W. Edwards Deming in 1983. A pilot project at the motor equipment division made substantial improvements in prioritizing repairs, improving communications with customers, reducing steps in the inventory purchasing process and, ultimately, reducing vehicle down time, all of which saved money and improved service at the same time. Based on the success of the pilot, it was decided to expand the philosophy throughout city government.
continue reading: Public Sector Management Using Deming's Ideas - Management Improvement Leaders
- Russell Ackoff – frankly I find it difficult to imagine a list management thought leader list, not including his name. Organizational development, systems thinking, management improvement, planning, policy deployment, learning.
- George Box: statistics, design of experiments, finding solutions (problem solving, process improvement), learning, management improvement
continue reading: Management Improvement Leaders - Quality and Costs
Deming explained that increasing quality decreases costs. Page 3 of Out of the Crisis: Improve Quality –> Costs decrease because of less rework, fewer mistakes, fewer delays…
Like most models this does not explain everything. Achieving some quality desires does cost more. And the article examines how to look at the issue of cost reduction in health care, where the view that higher quality costs more persists to a larger extent than elsewhere. There is significant room in health care for adopting improvement that will improve quality and reduce costs because the systems are so poorly designed they are both increasing costs and decreasing quality over what could be achieved. continue reading: Quality and Costs - Better and Different
The answer, as I see it, is to be better and different (when necessary).
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if you have to choose one, just being better will work most of the time. The problem is (using an example from Deming, page 9 New Economics) when, for example, carburetors are eliminated by innovation (fuel injectors) no matter how well you make them you are out of business.
Often people mistake Deming’s ideas as only about being better. He stressed not only continual improvement (Kaizen, incremental improvement, SPC) but also innovation. He stressed innovation both in the normal sense of innovating new products for customers and also innovation in managing the organization. continue reading: Better and Different - TQM for the Water Business
Deming did not like the term TQM. It was not defined, so each person using it meant something different. And the faddish nature of the term drew a large number of “hacks” (consultants who spoke with authority but without knowledge). Seeing the term TQM used now [2006] however, I find refreshing. To use the term TQM you must go against the temptation to talk only about the current fad (learning organizations, reengineering, balanced scorecard, six sigma, lean…). This author defines what he means by TQM... continue reading: TQM for the Water Business - The Exciting Life of Industrial Statisticians
All of this provides great new opportunities for industrial statisticians to serve as statistical leaders-a term popularized by the late and great Ed Deming (see Hahn and Hoerl, 1998). Statistical leaders engage principally in leveraging statistical concepts and thinking (see Hoerl, Hooper, Jacobs and Lucas , 1993), and focus their activities on mentoring and supporting the most business-vital and technically challenging problems dealing with getting the right data, and converting such data into actionable information.
continue reading: The Exciting Life of Industrial Statisticians - Cease Mass Inspection for Quality
Deming believed in improving the process, and doing so using process measures (which often may involve sampling) to guide improvement efforts. He did not believe in using inspection to select out the bad products, which is what inspection largely was before Deming.
More on Deming’s thought on Inspection... continue reading: Cease Mass Inspection for Quality - Going lean Brings Long-term Payoffs
The early successes provide resources to invest in making large more fundamental changes to the organization. Those successes also help convince people these lean ideas have merit. Dilbert does a good job of illustrating how many workers feel about the latest words spoken by their management. Without visible success expecting employees to believe the new management practices is unwise. continue reading: Going lean Brings Long-term Payoffs - Management Improvement History and Health Care
I think it is wise to think about what improvement methods were tried in the past and try to understand why they failed in order to improve the chances of success today. I think the many of the things which tripped up TQM, Six Sigma, re-engineering… efforts in the past are waiting to do the same to those efforts today, including lean thinking efforts. continue reading: Management Improvement History and Health Care - Bill Hunter and the Quality Movement
In the presentation George Box discusses interesting student design of experiments projects; read more on those efforts in 101 Ways to Design an Experiment, or Some Ideas About Teaching Design of Experiments.
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George's closing statement:
We carry in our hearts the inspiring memory of not only a scholar but a man that was resourceful, warm, skillful, courageous, optimistic, helpful, enterprising and generous. His career was whole and balanced in a way that is rare and as we grieve his death we also celebrate the life of a remarkable man.
continue reading: Bill Hunter and the Quality Movement - Business 901 Podcast with Me: Deming’s Management Ideas Today
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